Canadian railway history, fantasy, a flutter of romance—and a thoughtful examination of social injustice—collide in this...
William Everett is proud of his rags-to-riches father, manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway, but he wants to forge his own destiny.
Will’s first chance comes when real-life 19th-century rail baron Cornelius Van Horne invites him on a train ride to greet his years-absent, track-laying dad at a nearby mountain camp. After surviving an avalanche and a terrifying sasquatch attack, Will gets to hammer in the last spike, a diamond-encrusted gold railway spike worth a fortune. The story resumes three years later, as a taller, more fancified Will embarks with his now–high-ranking father on the maiden voyage of the Boundless, an opulent, 987-car train—a “rolling city” complete with automaton bartender and traveling circus, 7 miles from locomotive to caboose. Untold treasure is locked up in Van Horne’s booby-trapped funeral car, and a motley crew of hungry souls wants to get their hands on it no matter whom they have to kill to get it. The suspenseful shenanigans that follow shape this wild, cinematic ride, but the underlying narrative track is Will’s dogged determination to follow his own bliss—perhaps as an artist—despite his father’s strict opposition.
Canadian railway history, fantasy, a flutter of romance—and a thoughtful examination of social injustice—collide in this entertaining swashbuckler from the author of Printz Honor–winning Airborn (2005). (Historical fantasy. 9-14)Pub Date: April 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-7288-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
Trusting its readers implicitly with its moral complexity, Wolk’s novel stuns.
Evil comes to rural Pennsylvania in an unlikely guise in this novel of the American homefront during World War II.
Twelve-year-old Annabelle’s coming-of-age begins when newcomer Betty Glengarry, newly arrived from the city to stay with her grandparents “because she wasincorrigible,” shakes her down for spare change in Wolf Hollow on the way to school. Betty’s crimes quickly escalate into shocking violence, but the adults won’t believe the sweet-looking blonde girl could be responsible and settle their suspicions on Toby, an unkempt World War I veteran who stalks the hills carrying not one, but three guns. Annabelle’s strategies for managing a situation she can’t fully understand are thoroughly, believably childlike, as is her single-minded faith in Betty’s guilt and Toby’s innocence. But her childlike faith implicates her in a dark and dangerous mystery that propels her into the adult world of moral gray spaces. Wolk builds her story deliberately through Annabelle’s past-tense narration in language that makes no compromises but is yet perfectly simple: “Back then, I didn’t know a word to describe Betty properly or what to call the thing that set her apart from the other children in that school.” She realizes her setting with gorgeous immediacy, introducing the culture of this all-white world of hollows, hills, and neighbors with confidence and cleareyed affection.
Trusting its readers implicitly with its moral complexity, Wolk’s novel stuns. (Historical fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: April 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-99482-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
Conspiratorial theatrics and all-around good fun
“Catastrophe is the soul of the theater” in Donnelly’s middle-grade debut.
Sid is a precocious young white boy from the Florida Panhandle trying to rescue his beloved children’s theater, the Juicebox. He brings his best friend, Folly, an African-American boy who is the type of kid who can “sell sharks to the ocean” and “says wearing a bow tie reminds him of his life’s purpose,” along for the ride. In cahoots with the boys is Juicebox newcomer Jelly Baby, a Cuban-American puppeteer whose real name is Juliana. When Folly’s newest business scheme accidentally lands sensitive documents in their laps, the kids think they have just the ticket to secure the funds the theater needs to stay open. Chapters are written in prose but presented as a script with act and scene designations, a clever choice in theory but that in practice is often confusing, especially when the act and scene order are rebooted awkwardly just as the climax nears. The climax itself is reminiscent of Scooby Doo, as the meddling kids improbably catch the bad guy and manage to save the theater in a foregone but unlikely conclusion that may test even the most credulous readers. Despite this, Sid’s first-person, fourth-wall–breaking narration, full of amusing similes and asides, carries the day.
Conspiratorial theatrics and all-around good fun . (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62370-807-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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